From Monday, temperatures are expected to plummet below zero, and by the middle of the week parts of the region could experience sub-zero highs.

A yellow weather warning for severe cold and heavy snow has been issued by the Met Office from 4pm on Monday and traffic is expected to be affected by the conditions.

Ordinarily, the UK’s weather fronts come from a westerly direction from over the Atlantic, bringing moisture from the sea with them. These fronts normally deposit the majority of the moisture over the Welsh hills and the Peak District and peter out by the time they reach East Anglia, hence the region is one of the driest in the country.

However, the unusual easterly means East Anglia is likely to be one of the hardest hit areas of the country next week.

Adam Dury, forecaster at Weatherquest, said: “We have high pressure developing over the Arctic and there’s a lot of cold air that has developed over eastern Scandinavia, western Russia and the Siberia area. We’ve also got an area of low pressure across the Mediterranean and that brings quite a strong easterly across most of northern Europe.

“Norfolk and into Lincolnshire will be the most affected by it due to the fact it will be the first land it hits after its picked up any moisture from the North Sea.”

Mr Dury said: “For the north and the east of East Anglia snow will be the biggest problem, whereas for the west it will probably be the cold temperatures which are the biggest issue.

“It’s tricky to say exactly how bad at this stage but it will be significant. Tuesday the wind chill is looking like it could be around -5c. So day time highs on Tuesday might get up to zero degrees, but it will feel like minus five.

Wednesday and Thursday will probably be the peak days, which are looking the coldest out of any.”